


Challenge of the Dales

by Aly_H



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dales Never Fell, Dalish Elven Culture and Customs, Dalish Elves, Dorian as ambassador, M/M, No Conclave Explosion, One Shot, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-09-07 04:41:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16847323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aly_H/pseuds/Aly_H
Summary: Prompt Fill: "Fight me, you attractive stranger."---The Dales survived the Exalted March to become a small, but strong nation into the Dragon Age, and Dorian Pavus finds himself sent to serve as Ambassador to the southern nation famed for their mages and prickly natures.





	Challenge of the Dales

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt was adapted slightly to better fit the grammar patterns of the character speaking.

Dorian Pavus, Altus of the Tevinter Imperium, heir to his father’s seat on the Magisterium and all around social pariah in his homeland was perhaps not overly surprised to find that the position of Ambassador to the Dales was not one that earned him much love among the Dalish people.

The Dales were a prickly, fiercely independent nation remarkable for their free and independent _elven_ population. Their relationship with his homeland was also…poor, to say the least.

Not that the Dales seemed keen on getting along with their neighbors either.

Although, since the Blight Ferelden’s King Cailan though had begun to build a true friendship with the country that lay between his fertile kingdom (famed both for its rich lands and dogs) and the ever hungry Empire of Orlais whose conflicts with the Dales had ignited nearly as frequently as those between the Imperium and the Qun.

Currently his tour-guide was pointing out where the Andrastian Chantry for the city stood, though he would have recognized it for the Sunburst banners and silver-clad knights without her aid.

“We accepted many refugees from Ferelden ten years ago, and more recently have taken in mages fleeing from the Templar-Mage conflicts. They needed a place for their Maker.”

“Oh?” he tried to sound interested.

Truthfully he would have rather been back home studying magic – or, preferably, the bottom of a wine bottle – his recent affair with one of the Archon’s grandsons had garnered quite a bit of attention back home and so he’d been shipped off to allow the scandal of it to die down and – it was his father’s hope – for the Archon to forget about sending assassins.

If not he would have preferred to stay in the rooms that he had been granted the use of during his stay, not fetched out into the bright, colorful marketplace for a walk with the friendliest elf he’d met during his stay so far.

A low explosion – that clearly recognizable as a mana discharge – followed by shouts and jeering in the elven language. Cheering? An explosion?

Siona cast him a sidelong look, catching his confusion in the furrowing of his brows, and laughed a bit.

“It’s the training rings,” she explained, catching his sleeve and weaving through the crowd so they had a good view of a fence-ringed pit, Dorian tugged after her.

They arrived to see a red haired elf dump a human on his backside in the mud then offer him a hand up after extracting his yield with a shimmering blade held at his throat. There was a friendly exchange before the human climbed back out of the fighting pit to the knot of blue-and-silver uniforms.

One of the green clad warriors called something down to the red head who raised a brow and gestured for the caller to join him in the ring. The sides of the mud-filled pit were set a good twelve feet into the earth – the sides scarred with magic and showing _why_ a training ring had been carved out of the earth rather than simply having a fence constructed around it.

He could see several simpler fences standing empty in the area. Those who would usually have been using them among the on-lookers for the mage’s sparring sessions.

“He seems rather…stiff,” Dorian murmured, examining the red head. A staff in one hand and an empty hilt in the other – a knight-enchanter, given the mess of mud that they were fighting in it wasn’t really a surprise that those who _were_ competing had stripped down to just their trousers in favor of avoiding scouring mud from the elegant looking armor of their respective orders. (It was a view that Dorian could definitely appreciate if nothing else.)

He vaguely remembered meeting the red head before - during one of the previous tours he’d been dragged along by Siona on – to the University that time. The red head had not been wearing armor then either, instead had been half buried in his tomes and glaring when they’d made too much noise in the library.

Siona laughed a little, “He _does_ has that reputation. He’s one of the best Fade Hunters in the Dales though.”

Green eyes locked on Dorian and a head tilted to the side, long red locks loose from his previous matches falling into his face. A slow assessment traced over Dorian and he called up to Siona.

She rolled her eyes and called something back.

The red head shrugged before looking to Dorian again. His Trade was accented heavily, but there was a glint to his eye that showed despite his straight face that the warrior was perhaps not _quite_ as stiff or stern as Dorian’s first impressions.

“You – the attractive stranger,” he gestured, “Fight me.”

 


End file.
